The Frontline CEO: Turn Employees into Decision Makers Who Innovate Solutions, Win Customers, and Boost Profits

The Frontline CEO: Turn Employees into Decision Makers Who Innovate Solutions, Win Customers, and Boost Profits PDF Author: Eric Strafel
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 1264257813
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Drive long-term business results by empowering every employee at every level to become a skilled and effective frontline decision maker Today, the pace of change is so great that no company can afford to wait to respond to new developments. You need nimble and creative problem solving, and the most intelligent and efficient decision-making doesn’t come from the top—it comes from your employees on the front lines who interact with customers and can see and respond to the shifting landscape before anyone else. The leaders whose organizations are best able to innovate solutions, win customers, and boost profits during this era of rapid change are the ones who realize that everyone—from the CEO down to the frontline employee—is a leader, capitalize on that knowledge, and use it to grow. In this book, Eric Strafel draws on 20 years of experience as a top executive at Fortune 500 companies to show you how to decentralize and democratize decision-making through every level of the workforce, while ensuring that the company stays aligned, that each employee understands the company’s underlying purpose, and that everyone works toward the same goal. Learn how to: leverage frontline leadership to improve corporate agility partner with customers and with frontline employees to maximize internal innovation and deliver solutions cultivate a diverse, inclusive, and equitable culture that values each employee create a highly engaged, empowered, and energized workforce in every department equip the company to break through barriers, overcome plateaus, and scale Effective leadership isn’t about what you can achieve—it’s about what you can help others achieve. Make the switch from an antiquated top-down leadership style to a flatter, more nimble system in which every employee behaves and is treated like a leader. The Frontline CEO delivers the knowledge, strategies, and tactics you need to drive sustainable growth while creating a positive impact in the lives of your employees and community.

The Frontline CEO: Turn Employees into Decision Makers Who Innovate Solutions, Win Customers, and Boost Profits

The Frontline CEO: Turn Employees into Decision Makers Who Innovate Solutions, Win Customers, and Boost Profits PDF Author: Eric Strafel
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 1264257813
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
Drive long-term business results by empowering every employee at every level to become a skilled and effective frontline decision maker Today, the pace of change is so great that no company can afford to wait to respond to new developments. You need nimble and creative problem solving, and the most intelligent and efficient decision-making doesn’t come from the top—it comes from your employees on the front lines who interact with customers and can see and respond to the shifting landscape before anyone else. The leaders whose organizations are best able to innovate solutions, win customers, and boost profits during this era of rapid change are the ones who realize that everyone—from the CEO down to the frontline employee—is a leader, capitalize on that knowledge, and use it to grow. In this book, Eric Strafel draws on 20 years of experience as a top executive at Fortune 500 companies to show you how to decentralize and democratize decision-making through every level of the workforce, while ensuring that the company stays aligned, that each employee understands the company’s underlying purpose, and that everyone works toward the same goal. Learn how to: leverage frontline leadership to improve corporate agility partner with customers and with frontline employees to maximize internal innovation and deliver solutions cultivate a diverse, inclusive, and equitable culture that values each employee create a highly engaged, empowered, and energized workforce in every department equip the company to break through barriers, overcome plateaus, and scale Effective leadership isn’t about what you can achieve—it’s about what you can help others achieve. Make the switch from an antiquated top-down leadership style to a flatter, more nimble system in which every employee behaves and is treated like a leader. The Frontline CEO delivers the knowledge, strategies, and tactics you need to drive sustainable growth while creating a positive impact in the lives of your employees and community.

Judgment on the Front Line

Judgment on the Front Line PDF Author: Chris DeRose
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101561718
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Front-line employees who deal directly with customers are the face of any organization. Not only do they have the most impact on how a brand is perceived, but they are also the most valuable source of insight into what customers want and how to give it to them. Unfortunately, as management experts Chris DeRose and Noel M. Tichy explain, most organizations don't know how to evaluate the risk of giving employees more autonomy. Many of those who are willing to try haven't even invested resources in ensuring that-once the shackles are off-front-line employees make good judgments. Tichy and DeRose offer powerful examples of front-line leadership, such as: How Zappos trusts its people to do anything in service of a customer, including providing free product or reimbursing for mistakes How Mayo Clinic of Arizona enabled its nurses to challenge the hierarchy in order to improve patient care

The Service Profit Chain

The Service Profit Chain PDF Author: James L. Heskett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439108307
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
In this pathbreaking book, world-renowned Harvard Business School service firm experts James L. Heskett, W. Earl Sasser, Jr. and Leonard A. Schlesinger reveal that leading companies stay on top by managing the service profit chain. Why are a select few service firms better at what they do -- year in and year out -- than their competitors? For most senior managers, the profusion of anecdotal "service excellence" books fails to address this key question. Based on five years of painstaking research, the authors show how managers at American Express, Southwest Airlines, Banc One, Waste Management, USAA, MBNA, Intuit, British Airways, Taco Bell, Fairfield Inns, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and the Merry Maids subsidiary of ServiceMaster employ a quantifiable set of relationships that directly links profit and growth to not only customer loyalty and satisfaction, but to employee loyalty, satisfaction, and productivity. The strongest relationships the authors discovered are those between (1) profit and customer loyalty; (2) employee loyalty and customer loyalty; and (3) employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Moreover, these relationships are mutually reinforcing; that is, satisfied customers contribute to employee satisfaction and vice versa. Here, finally, is the foundation for a powerful strategic service vision, a model on which any manager can build more focused operations and marketing capabilities. For example, the authors demonstrate how, in Banc One's operating divisions, a direct relationship between customer loyalty measured by the "depth" of a relationship, the number of banking services a customer utilizes, and profitability led the bank to encourage existing customers to further extend the bank services they use. Taco Bell has found that their stores in the top quadrant of customer satisfaction ratings outperform their other stores on all measures. At American Express Travel Services, offices that ticket quickly and accurately are more profitable than those which don't. With hundreds of examples like these, the authors show how to manage the customer-employee "satisfaction mirror" and the customer value equation to achieve a "customer's eye view" of goods and services. They describe how companies in any service industry can (1) measure service profit chain relationships across operating units; (2) communicate the resulting self-appraisal; (3) develop a "balanced scorecard" of performance; (4) develop a recognitions and rewards system tied to established measures; (5) communicate results company-wide; (6) develop an internal "best practice" information exchange; and (7) improve overall service profit chain performance. What difference can service profit chain management make? A lot. Between 1986 and 1995, the common stock prices of the companies studied by the authors increased 147%, nearly twice as fast as the price of the stocks of their closest competitors. The proven success and high-yielding results from these high-achieving companies will make The Service Profit Chain required reading for senior, division, and business unit managers in all service companies, as well as for students of service management.

The Front-Line Leader

The Front-Line Leader PDF Author: Chris Van Gorder
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118933362
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Real leadership that leads to high engagement, higher performance, and a culture of accountability As president and CEO of Scripps Health, one of America's most prestigious health systems, Chris Van Gorder presided over a dramatic turnaround, catapulting Scripps from near bankruptcy to a dominant market position. While hospitals and health systems nationwide have laid people off or are closing their doors, Scripps is financially healthy, has added thousands of employees (even with a no-layoff philosophy), and has developed a reputation as a top employer. What are the secrets to this remarkable story? In The Front-Line Leader, Chris Van Gorder candidly shares his own incredible story, from police officer to CEO, and the leadership philosophy that drives all of his decisions and actions: people come first. Van Gorder began his unlikely career as a California police officer, which deeply instilled in him a sense of social responsibility, honesty, and public service. After being injured on the job and taking an early retirement, Van Gorder had to reinvent himself, taking a job as a hospital security director, a job that would change his life. Through hard work and determination, he rose to executive ranks, eventually becoming CEO of Scripps. But he never forgot his own roots and powerful work ethic, or the time when he was a security officer and a CEO would not make eye contact with him. Van Gorder leads from the front lines, making it a priority to know his employees and customers at every level. His values learned on the force—protecting the community, educating citizens, developing caring relationships, and ultimately doing the right thing—shape his approach to business. As much as companies talk about accountability, managers seldom understand what practical steps to take to achieve an ethic of service that makes accountability meaningful. The Front-Line Leader outlines specific tactics and steps anyone can use starting today to take responsibility, inspire others, and achieve breakout results for their organizations. Van Gorder reveals how a no-layoff philosophy led to higher accountability, how his own attention to seemingly minor details spurred larger change, and how his own high standards for himself and his team improved morale and productivity. From general strategy to the tiny, everyday steps leaders can take to create the kind of culture and accountability that translates into major competitive advantage, The Front-Line Leader charts a path to better leadership and a more engaged, higher-performing organization.

The Founder's Mentality

The Founder's Mentality PDF Author: Chris Zook
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
ISBN: 1633691179
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
A Washington Post Bestseller Three Principles for Managing—and Avoiding—the Problems of Growth Why is profitable growth so hard to achieve and sustain? Most executives manage their companies as if the solution to that problem lies in the external environment: find an attractive market, formulate the right strategy, win new customers. But when Bain & Company’s Chris Zook and James Allen, authors of the bestselling Profit from the Core, researched this question, they found that when companies fail to achieve their growth targets, 90 percent of the time the root causes are internal, not external—increasing distance from the front lines, loss of accountability, proliferating processes and bureaucracy, to name only a few. What’s more, companies experience a set of predictable internal crises, at predictable stages, as they grow. Even for healthy companies, these crises, if not managed properly, stifle the ability to grow further—and can actively lead to decline. The key insight from Zook and Allen’s research is that managing these choke points requires a “founder’s mentality”—behaviors typically embodied by a bold, ambitious founder—to restore speed, focus, and connection to customers: • An insurgent’s clear mission and purpose • An unambiguous owner mindset • A relentless obsession with the front line Based on the authors’ decade-long study of companies in more than forty countries, The Founder’s Mentality demonstrates the strong relationship between these three traits in companies of all kinds—not just start-ups—and their ability to sustain performance. Through rich analysis and inspiring examples, this book shows how any leader—not only a founder—can instill and leverage a founder’s mentality throughout their organization and find lasting, profitable growth.

Results

Results PDF Author: Bruce A. Pasternack
Publisher: Crown Business
ISBN: 0307337316
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Every company has a personality. Does yours help or hinder your results? Does it make you fit for growth? Find out by taking the quiz that’s helped 50,000 people better understand their organizations at OrgDNA.com and to learn more about Organizational DNA. Just as you can understand an individual’s personality, so too can you understand a company’s type—what makes it tick, what’s good and bad about it. Results explains why some organizations bob and weave and roll with the punches to consistently deliver on commitments and produce great results, while others can’t leave their corner of the ring without tripping on their own shoelaces. Gary Neilson and Bruce Pasternack help you identify which of the seven company types you work for—and how to keep what’s good and fix what’s wrong. You’ll feel the shock of recognition (“That’s me, that’s my company”) as you find out whether your organization is: • Passive-Aggressive (“everyone agrees, smiles, and nods, but nothing changes”): entrenched underground resistance makes getting anything done like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall • Fits-and-Starts (“let 1,000 flowers bloom”): filled with smart people pulling in different directions • Outgrown (“the good old days meet a brave new world”): reacts slowly to market developments, since it’s too hard to run new ideas up the flagpole • Overmanaged (“we’re from corporate and we’re here to help”): more reporting than working, as managers check on their subordinates’ work so they can in turn report to their bosses • Just-in-Time (“succeeding, but by the skin of our teeth”): can turn on a dime and create real breakthroughs but also tends to burn out its best and brightest • Military Precision (“flying in formation”): executes brilliant strategies but usually does not deal well with events not in the playbook • Resilient (“as good as it gets”): flexible, forward-looking, and fun; bounces back when it hits a bump in the road and never, ever rests on its laurels For anyone who’s ever said, “Wow, that’s a great idea, but it’ll never happen here” or “Whew, we pulled it off again, but I’m tired of all this sprinting,” Results provides robust, practical ideas for becoming and remaining a resilient business. Also available as an eBook From the Hardcover edition.

The Idea-Driven Organization

The Idea-Driven Organization PDF Author: Alan G. Robinson
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN: 1626561257
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
“Examples from all over the world make it fun to read…convincingly demonstrate[s] the power of incorporating frontline thinking into your organization.” —Marshall Goldsmith, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Triggers Too many organizations overlook, or even suppress, their single most powerful source of growth and innovation—and it’s right under their noses. The frontline employees who interact directly with your customers, make your products, and provide your services have unparalleled insights into where problems exist and what improvements and new offerings would have the most impact. In this follow-up to their bestseller Ideas Are Free, Alan G. Robinson and Dean M. Schroeder show how to align every part of an organization around generating and implementing employee ideas and offer dozens of examples of what a tremendous competitive advantage this can offer—not just for revenue but for worker retention. Their advice enables leaders to build organizations capable of implementing twenty, fifty, or even a hundred ideas per employee per year. Citing organizations from around the world, they explain what’s needed to put together a management team that embraces grassroots ideas and describe the strategies, policies, and practices that enable them. They detail exactly how high-performing idea processes work and how to design one for your organization. There’s pressure today to do more with less. But cutting wages and benefits and pushing people to work harder with fewer resources can go only so far. Ironically, the best solution resides with the very people who’ve been bearing the brunt of these measures. With this book, you can unleash a constant stream of great ideas that will strengthen every facet of your organization.

Working Backwards

Working Backwards PDF Author: Colin Bryar
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250267609
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Working Backwards is an insider's breakdown of Amazon's approach to culture, leadership, and best practices from two long-time Amazon executives—with lessons and techniques you can apply to your own company, and career, right now. In Working Backwards, two long-serving Amazon executives reveal the principles and practices that have driven the success of one of the most extraordinary companies the world has ever known. With twenty-seven years of Amazon experience between them—much of it during the period of unmatched innovation that created products and services including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services—Bryar and Carr offer unprecedented access to the Amazon way as it was developed and proven to be repeatable, scalable, and adaptable. With keen analysis and practical steps for applying it at your own company—no matter the size—the authors illuminate how Amazon’s fourteen leadership principles inform decision-making at all levels of the company. With a focus on customer obsession, long-term thinking, eagerness to invent, and operational excellence, Amazon’s ground-level practices ensure these characteristics are translated into action and flow through all aspects of the business. Working Backwards is both a practical guidebook and the story of how the company grew to become so successful. It is filled with the authors’ in-the-room recollections of what “Being Amazonian” is like and how their time at the company affected their personal and professional lives. They demonstrate that success on Amazon’s scale is not achieved by the genius of any single leader, but rather through commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously-executed principles and practices—shared here for the very first time. Whatever your talent, career or organization might be, find out how you can put Working Backwards to work for you.

Amp It Up

Amp It Up PDF Author: Frank Slootman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119836417
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller The secret to leading growth is your mindset Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman is one of the tech world's most accomplished executives in enterprise growth, having led Snowflake to the largest software IPO ever after leading ServiceNow and Data Domain to exponential growth and the public market before that. In Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity, he shares his leadership approach for the first time. Amp It Up delivers an authoritative look at what it takes to transform an organization for maximum growth and scale. Slootman shows that most leaders have significant room to improve their organization's performance without making expensive changes to their talent, structure, or fundamental business model—and they don’t need to bring in an army of consultants to do it. What they do need is to align people around what matters and execute with urgency and intensity every day. Leading for unprecedented growth means declaring war on mediocrity, breaking the status quo, and making conflicted choices daily, all with a relentless focus on the mission. Amp It Up provides the first principles to guide that change, and the tactical advice for organizing a company around them. Perfect for executives, entrepreneurs, founders, managers, and leaders of all kinds, Amp It Up is a must-read resource for anyone who seeks to unleash the growth potential of a company and scale it to heights they never thought possible.

Accelerating Performance

Accelerating Performance PDF Author: Colin Price
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119147492
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Transform your organization into a dynamic catalyst for success Accelerating Performance is not just another “warm and fuzzy” change management book—it's a practical, comprehensive, data-driven action plan for picking up the pace and achieving more. Co-written by one of the authors of Beyond Performance, this book draws on a combination of empirical research and decades of experience advising global companies to show you how to reduce time to value by building and changing momentum more quickly than your competitors. The META framework (short for Mobilize, Execute, and Transform with Agility) offers advice for leading change at four levels: strategy, the organization, teams, and individuals. In addition to step-by-step guidance toward assessment, planning, and implementation, the book offers: A diagnostic tool for leaders, teams, and organizations to assess their starting place, and highlight the specific areas needed to improve the ability to accelerate performance. A detailed look at the factors proven to create drag—and drive—at each of the four levels: strategy, organizations, teams, and individuals. An exploration of the 39 differentiating actions that organizations can combine as dictated by their strategy and context into a winning recipe. A closer look at the practices of 23 “superaccelerators,” a global (and perhaps unexpected) mix of companies that have demonstrated a consistent ability to accelerate performance. A single taste of success is all it takes to spark change, but the hard work of following through requires constant vigilance—and a plan. Learn how to capture that drive, bottle it, and use it to sustain motivation, inspiration, and achievement. Deliver at the highest level, and then turn around and do even better next time. Accelerating Performance gives leaders a step-by-step framework for taking action and transforming their organizations, teams, and even themselves—starting today.